Global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) has launched its first African office in Cape Town. The opening is marked at a time when organisations across South Africa and the broader region face increasing pressure to improve operational performance, strengthen resilience and deliver greater returns from existing infrastructure and capital-intensive assets.

A&M's Restructuring team hosted an exclusive breakfast seminar on the automotive sector. The event gathered the lawyer, bank and fund community to discuss the disruptive forces hitting the industry – and how that’s driving stress and distress across European OEMs and suppliers in 2026.

Financial distress is accelerating and becoming more entrenched across European businesses as mounting macroeconomic and geopolitical pressures eroded both earnings and balance sheet resilience in 2025. The latest A&M Distress Alert highlights 13.5% of companies in Europe are now classified as distressed, the highest level since at least 2022 and up from 8.6% in 2024.

Kate Magee joins A&M’s practice in Dublin, bringing deep sector and local expertise